Mark (Mallick Brothers 3)

I repeat. He reached behind his back, snagged his tee, pulled it over his head, and then discarded it to the floor. To the floor. Which seemed to imply that he had no intentions of retrieving it.

It also meant he was shirtless.

Shirtless.

As in his whole chest and torso area was on display.

And, let me tell you, it was quite the chest and torso area.

First, I hadn't realized how much ink he had. But with nothing covering him, I could see two half-sleeves, a chest piece, and something snaking down his back. He did, blissfully, leave his whole stomach area free. Which was good because you could really appreciate the deep, indented grooves of his abdominal muscles, and the delicious (seriously, I wanted to lick them) adonis belt muscles that half-disappeared into the waistband of his jeans.

"See a wire anywhere, baby?" he asked, making my guilty eyes shoot up as a flush crept over every inch of skin, heating me, making desire uncurl through my body. "I mean, I can take these off too if you want to check," he offered, hands going to the button and zip of his jeans, smile absolutely devilish.

"That won't be necessary." Unless he wanted me to do a hands-on inspection. With my mouth.

Oh, Jesus.

"Well, if you're sure," he said with a shrug as he just went right back to chopping the ends off the green beans like he wasn't half-naked and fully distracting. "And as for the ratting you out. Honey, last Monday, I followed a guy name Mick Mallard down an alley where I knew he went to get high on his lunch break, and I slammed his head into the bricks until he agreed to pay the cash at the end of the business day. So now you got some serious dirt on me. Take it as a show of trust. Now all you gotta do is trust me back."

Surprisingly, I didn't actually have trust issues. Not in the typical way people often did in relationships, constantly worried about things like cheating or someone getting bored of them and leaving. I was too secure for that.

My trust issues stemmed wholly from the fact that I did illegal things and I didn't want to go to jail for them. Or my brothers.

That being said, Mark knew exactly what that was like for himself and his family as well.

I could, I was sure, trust him.

"When I was nine, my dad dropped dead from a sudden aneurysm. No warning. No life insurance. No support for my stay-at-home mother of five."

I remembered the devastation, sure. It was something we all felt, something we all experienced in our own ways. But, for some reason, I remembered the panic more. I remembered the wild eyes as she stared at a wall or a stack of mail. I remembered the way her face went from youthful and lovely to ten years older and sunken seemingly overnight. I remembered the absolutely frantic calling to all the local businesses, all the afternoons after school when we would all sit in the back of the van doing homework while she went on interviews. I remembered the way she brought a calculator to the grocery store and would have to choose between the laundry detergent and paper towels. That's why we have so many dishrags! Plus, it's better for the environment! Even to a nine-year-old, that enthusiasm sounded fake.

Because, see, the jobs never called back.

After all, she had graduated high school and gotten almost immediately pregnant. And then again. And again. And again. And again. But it didn't matter because my father made good money and she could focus on raising us.

But it also meant that she had absolutely no work history.

Nada.

Zilch.

Trying to hit the workforce for the first time in your late thirties was, well, almost impossible. At least if you wanted to make an actual salary you could live off of.

But three months after our father was lowered into the ground, she finally got a call back. Then three days after the drug test cleared, she had a job.

Making seven dollars an hour.

With five other mouths to feed.

Yet it was the best she could do. So we sold the house and downsized to a two bedroom, me and my mom in one, all my brothers in the other. We cut out anything that could be considered a luxury, like new school clothes every fall that had always been a tradition before. Santa got a little stingier with the presents. There was no money for the ice cream man or school lunches.

But the lights stayed on and we never went hungry.

Things went well enough for a long time.

Kingston aged up and moved on. Following him, so did Nixon and Atlas. Until it was just me, Mom, and Rush at home. Rush was never actually home either, so it really was just me all by my lonesome most of the time.